The frozen department extends into the second aisle, which is home to an interesting feature that we'll look at closer in a moment. In a fun AFB guest post today, the Sing Oil Blogger mentioned finding stores with left-to-right aisle numbering to be quite strange; on the other hand, I've hardly ever seen any with right-to-left numbering and would find that particularly strange in a store like the one featured there with the entrance on the left. That being said, I do think right-to-left numbering would make sense in a store like this one, with a single entrance on the right side of the store -- I think that's the only configuration where I wouldn't find it strange, however!
I consider stores with produce on the left and the first aisles on the left, so a left-to-right orientation, to be the natural orientation of a supermarket. Ones with a reversed layout always feel strange to me! Oddly enough, almost every Albertsons/Krogertsons/Randallbertsons/Albertsons Towns I've been to in Houston, if not all of them, have a right-to-left orientation! I'm not sure why that is. Now that I think about it, the Troutdale Grocery Palace Safertsons I went to while on vacation had a left-to-right orientation so that might well have been the first Albertsons/former Albertsons I went to with a natural orientation! Huh, go figure! The Cully Neighborhood Albertsons did have the right-to-left orientation I'm more used to with Albertsons, and pretty much only Albertsons.
ReplyDeleteThe great majority of Kroger stores in Houston, at least ones built by Kroger, have a left-to-right orientation. 1980s and before Safeways were a bit of a mixed bag, but the one I shopped at most frequently, the one that is a Food Town now, is left-to-right. Most pre-Safeway era built Randall's are also left-to-right and the Randall's I shop at most frequently these days is left-to-right as well. So, yeah, put me in the left-to-right category in terms of preference and what I see most often...outside of stores with Albertsons heritage!
Ack! What am I saying? Lol, I meant to say that right-to-left is the more natural orientation for me, and for most supermarkets here, except for stores with Albertsons heritage which are left-to-right. Completely reverse everything I wrote in the upper reply! Now I've completely confused everyone, sorry, lol. So, anyway, yeah, I am with Sing Oil on this one, right-to-left is more normal here and more normal to me! Yes, I'm pretty sure I got it 'right' this time!
DeleteHa, now I'm thoroughly confused! What I was thinking about, and what I think Sing Oil was describing, is the actual numbering of the aisles running from right to left, which seems to be independent of the orientation of the store -- this is a "right to left" store, but the aisle numbers run in the expected left to right direction.
DeleteI don't really have a preference for which way the store itself is oriented, and that's probably because the classic Northwest Safeway layout is much more balanced than this type of layout -- one side of the store has the produce department while the other has the deli and bakery, and most stores have two doors (sometimes one of the two is clearly intended as the primary entrance, and normally it's the one on the produce side, but others don't have an obvious primary entrance). There also doesn't seem to be an obvious preference for whether the produce department is on the right or the left -- I'm sure it's not exactly 50/50, but at least among the stores I've visited, neither side is obviously more common than the other.
Huh, I've never seen a store, I don't think at least, where aisle 1 (or 2 in the case of stores where the produce department is aisle 1) isn't next to produce if that is what you and Sing are describing! There might have been one now-closed Randall's that may have been like that, but I can't remember for sure. That store had a strange layout for sure.
DeleteWow, I didn't think I would start such a conversation with my post! I suppose I'll mention again back on AWB, but nearly every Publix, Kroger, Ingles, Food Lion, and Winn-Dixie I can think of are both aligned for shoppers to move from right-to-left and numbered from right-to-left. There are exceptions to the alignment trend, like the occasional Publixsons, where Publix has kept somebody else's alignment and numbering scheme. There is also the occasional store that Publix decided to completely renumber during a remodel to fit its numbering convention, despite the store being aligned in the opposite direction. Publix #721 now has aisle 1 on the right side of the store and aisle 19 next to produce, the opposite of how A&P intended.
DeleteThat's really interesting! Left-to-right numbering just seems so obvious to me, regardless of layout. Some stores (especially Albertsons) with a forced right-to-left flow around here do have right-to-left numbering, but most stores (especially Safeway and QFC) have entrances on both sides of the salesfloor, and therefore just go with a default left-to-right arrangement.
DeleteI am definitely team right-to-left as well!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thanks for the mention! And it looks like I have some catchup to do, lol!
ReplyDelete